The Palace of Versailles is set to transform Hotel du Grand Controle, the traditional home of the chateau’s treasurers into a luxury hotel.
The opening of the 23-bedroom establishment, in which some rooms will look out onto the “Orangerie” — the chateau’s elaborate greenhouse — or the Swiss ornamental lake, is planned for late 2011. The palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site deemed one of the crowning achievements of 18th-century French art, is one of Europe’s most popular tourist attractions.
Famed for its Hall of Mirrors and home to the French court from 1682, the complex was transformed and expanded under the Sun King Louis XIV into a monument to royal grandeur and absolutism. It remained the official seat of power until the French Revolution in 1789, when Marie-Antoinette fled the palace via a secret passage.